Friday, November 30, 2007

(Thread was moved here because of technical difficulties on other thread.)

[Update] Crisis is over, no one hurt.

Man had told his family earlier to watch the television today, so this was preplanned.

The mans name is Leeland Eisenberg. [End Update]

Hillary Clinton is not at that office but reports are saying a man walked into Hillary's NH office with what looks like a bomb strapped to his chest. That information came from a witness that called it in.

Authorities are standing by trying to deal with it and at the moment there are no injuries reported.

Bear in mind, just because it looked like a bomb to the witness doesn't mean it is real.

"A young woman with a 6-month or 8-month-old infant came rushing into the store just in tears, and she said, 'You need to call 911. A man has just walked into the Clinton office, opened his coat and showed us a bomb strapped to his chest with duct tape,'" witness Lettie Tzizik said.

There are several police officers positioned across the street from the office, crouched down behind cruisers with guns drawn, according to a reported at the scene.

"I walked out and I immediately started running, and I saw that the road was blocked off. They told me run and keep going," said Cassandra Hamilton, who works in an office adjacent to the building.

Nearby businesses have been evacuated, and the St. Elizabeth Seaton School has been locked down.

[Update] Witnesses were reporting that the assailant had flares, not a bomb, strapped to his body.

Fox tells us about previous situations at political campaign offices in the years past:

In March 1980, intruders claiming to be with the Puerto Rican separatist organization Armed Forces of National Liberation (Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional, or FALN) stormed the campaign offices of Jimmy Carter in Chicago and George H.W. Bush in New York.

They bound and gagged campaign workers in both offices, but left without injuring anyone after spray-painting nationalist slogans on the walls.

There have also been several non-fatal explosions at the campaign offices of other politicians, none of whom were running for president.

In June 2003, a pipe bomb filled with roofing nails exploded outside Calif. Rep. Loretta Sanchez’s campaign office in Santa Ana. Garden Grove resident Hai Duc Le, who was severely scarred in the incident, was sentenced to 21 months in prison for the blast. No one else was hurt, and authorities said at the time that the congresswoman was not a target.

In 1998, a soda-bottle bomb blew up outside Jesse Ventura’s gubernatorial campaign office in Minneapolis. Again police said they didn’t think the bombings were politically motivated, and no one was hurt.

And in 1994, then-Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson’s campaign office was also struck by a pipe bomb, but no one was wounded.

News is announcing another hostage has been released.

Seems the man has surrendered also, approximately 6 hrs after beginning, no injuries and no fatalities.

[Update] Another hostage released for a total of 5 all together being released.Developing story....